American History 1988
Chapter 74 - 69: The Comer is Up to No Good

Chapter 74: Chapter 69: The Comer is Up to No Good

Returning to Youngstown again, Dean’s mood was different from his initial melancholy. This time, there was no news of his old man going to jail, nor any confusion about the future.

He had shaken off most of the troubles from before and had meticulously nurtured something like a business venture, called Price’s List, that now brought him a monthly income of $3,000 to $5,000. By the salary standards of the era, Dean was certainly in the middle class, even toward the upper end.

Oh right, there was also the multiple rental company in Youngstown. With a monthly income of around $2,000, not only was it steadily growing, it also covered most of the expenses of Price’s List and his personal life.

Dean still couldn’t do without it, so when Susie called saying the multiple rental company had run into some trouble, he arranged things in Cleveland and took a rental car back to Youngstown over the weekend.

April had arrived, and Youngstown had shrugged off its winter attire, stepping into a season of rejuvenation.

The car turned onto Interstate 70, with Mill Creek Park in the distance to the south. The peach and chestnut trees there were covered in new greens, and as the car moved forward, Dean could even see pink and tender yellow blossoms hidden among the leafy branches.

Charlotte Street was not far beneath Interstate 70, but Dean didn’t choose to go home first. He continued north along the highway directly to the northern part of downtown Youngstown, to Bodman Street, where Susie’s apartment was.

Parking the car in Susie’s spot, Dean knocked on the door with familiar ease.

It took more than ten seconds before the owner’s voice came from inside, "Who’s out there?"

"Someone said there’s delicious seafood pasta here? I just came to ask," Dean said, hands in his pockets, looking very much like a loafer.

"F*ck you, Dean, is that you?" The woman’s voice grew closer, and by her last word, the door had already opened.

Susie, wearing a pink bathrobe, opened the door, surprised and looking over Dean standing outside.

"Susie, you don’t mind if I start with some seafood pasta, do you?" Dean said, shaking the shopping bag in his hand that held beer and champagne.

"Come on, let’s see if there’s been any improvement in the last two months!" Susie pulled at Dean’s collar and headed for the bedroom.

After tossing the shopping bag onto the sofa, their silhouettes intertwined. The thumping sounds of moving footsteps mixed with the flying bathrobe and scattered clothes.

Soon, the sounds of ecstasy from the garden of Eden emerged from the bedroom, "Shit! Dean, I can feel your technique improving. Have we not seen each other for too long, or have you been practicing with other girls?"

"Susie, that doesn’t matter. You only need to know I’ve saved the best for you~" Dean, who had honed his skills, was now showing off all his moves with Susie.

"F*ck! I’ve seen God! Dean~!" Susie, after a long drought meeting sweet rain, screamed...

"Susie? Susie?" After a marathon of three hundred rounds, Dean nudged the drowsy Susie beside him.

"Don’t disturb me, Dean, let me sleep a while longer." Susie was really tired; she had severely overexerted herself.

"Alright, then we’ll talk about the rental company tomorrow, I’m heading home for a bit." Dean picked up the clothes beside the bed, putting them on one by one.

"The rental company?" Susie, who had been half asleep, sat up abruptly as if jolted awake by the mention of the word.

"Wait," she pulled back Dean, who was about to get up, "I think now is a good time to talk about it. You know what? The rental company has a competitor!"

"A competitor?" Dean turned around, surprised. "You mean there are others here in Youngstown offering personal credit services?"

"Mmhmm~" Susie pulled on a sweater over herself and brushed away someone’s mischievous hands before slowly explaining the reason she had called him back.

"Remember Lenny? The landlord who was the first to find tenants through Price’s List and the first to support our multiple rental endeavor. He always liked wearing the camo duckbill cap and had that thick Texan accent..."

"OK, I kind of remember him now." Dean recalled the landlord from the last real estate investors’ meeting in Youngstown, which he had also attended.

"In a recent deal, he asked me to lower the price. The reason was that a company called Good Rental provided the same services as us, but only charged $12 per transaction. That’s when I realized the rental company was in trouble; indeed, over the next month, the number of orders I received started to dwindle. Dean, you’ve seen the list I fax you each time getting shorter, haven’t you?"

"Yes, I’ve noticed. But I didn’t want to stress you, Susie." Dean had been busy with Price’s List and hadn’t paid much attention to the recent situation with the rental company. Still, this didn’t stop Dean from being a gentleman in front of Susie.

Susie’s expression softened considerably at his words, "Darling, I know you’re being considerate. But we have to face this awful situation; Good Rental is stealing our business!"

Rent Collecting Made Easy? Just hearing the name, Dean knew the visitors bore ill intent; it was obviously a knock-off of "Collect More Rent".

"Susie, do you have a credit report from Rent Collecting Made Easy?" After standing up to open a can of beer, Dean took a leisurely sip.

"Of course." Seeing his composed demeanor, Susie elegantly rose from the bed and walked out to the living room, where she found the Rent Collecting Made Easy report she had collected in advance.

"I think you’ll find it very familiar, Dean." Susie unfolded the report and handed it to Dean, who was standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.

More than familiar, apart from the company logo and some minute differences in data structure, if someone said the report came from Collect More Rent, the landlords wouldn’t suspect a thing.

"Sloppy plagiarist," with just one glance, Dean found the information he was looking for.

The report from Rent Collecting Made Easy wasn’t just strikingly similar to Collect More Rent, its data also came from the same server. But that still wasn’t the key issue; what really caught Dean’s attention was that the data structure of Rent Collecting Made Easy was different from Collect More Rent’s.

The system was his own creation, and Dean was very aware of his coding habits. Whether pulling up someone’s criminal records from DCAP or querying through Collect More Rent, the structure of the exported data followed the same pattern, a style unique to Dean.

For instance, the use of numeric delimiters or whether special characters were used as link markers when words wrapped to a new line. These subtle differences weren’t very noticeable, but Dean had his own usage habits.

In other words, whether the record reports queried from the public entry of Youngstown’s courthouse or the credit reports from Collect More Rent, there were "signatures" that only Dean would recognize.

But this report from Rent Collecting Made Easy didn’t have them, indicating its data export path wasn’t from DCAP at the Youngstown courthouse, nor was it from the Collect More Rent software.

This just got interesting, the data source wasn’t coming from a public open entry... it looks like I’ve encountered a peer this time.

Setting his beer on the table, Dean put on his coat, "Is there any other information regarding Rent Collecting Made Easy?"

"I did some digging. The company is registered in the west of the city. The owner is a young man named Rubin; he’s not from our block, nobody had heard of him before." Susie meant that Rubin had not previously mixed in the property circles; he seemed to come out of nowhere. Then he dived headfirst into the housing market and even became a rival to Dean’s group.

"And besides that? A person who has never been in the circles can’t just barge into the market without any introductions, especially not a specialized monopoly segment like Collect More Rent." Dean refused to believe that Rubin became Collect More Rent’s competitor by "coincidence"; that’s impossible.

"You guessed right," Susie poured another glass of champagne for him, "I phoned Lenny many times, and finally, as a former friend, he let slip something to me. The first customer of Rent Collecting Made Easy is said to have come through Kent’s introduction."

"Who?" Dean’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Kent Talsi, the current president of the Youngstown Real Estate Alliance."

"Wow, things are getting more interesting." Dean smiled as he sipped his champagne, that explained it. A technically savvy peer and a president of the Real Estate Alliance, a match made in heaven, ah?

"So, my warrior," Susie gently touched the side of Dean’s face, "can we take back our business?"

"I suggest you prepare some more champagne so that when I return in victory, we can celebrate to our heart’s content." Dean downed the champagne in his glass and then placed the empty glass back on the table. "Keep my return to Youngstown under wraps for now, especially from Kent."

"I’ll have the most enticing champagne ready," Susie stuck out her pink tongue, licking her lips. "You must come and taste it; I promise you’ll enjoy it like no other."

"That sounds nice," Dean grabbed his car keys, "but before that, I need to verify a few things. Then, by the way, see if I can catch a certain uninvited thief who’s barged in."

"Go, my warrior, and take back what belongs to us!" When Dean returned, Susie felt like she had found her cornerstone.

Starting the rented Ford car, Dean then turned and drove south. The house on Charlotte Street had been reclaimed by Peter.

Miss Karen, who was once there, had gone to Wisconsin State last month. The compensation from Packard Electric had been deposited in Peter’s account, fifty thousand US dollars, enough for him to live comfortably for quite some time.

When Dean parked the car in front of his house, the owner of the house had no inkling of an incoming visitor.

Opening the door of the car, and before he could enter the house, Dean smelt alcohol.

"I knew it, predicting what someone is up to right now is just too easy."

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